


Hexad

by KaenOkami



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pokemon Ranger
Genre: Apologies, Crimes & Criminals, Escape, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, How Do I Tag, Partnership, Pokemon Battles, Reconciliation, Starter Pokemon, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28820811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaenOkami/pseuds/KaenOkami
Summary: After fleeing Altru Tower, Ice, Heath, and Lavana rush to escape Almia amid the chaos caused by the Incredible Machine's activation. However, in order to make a clean getaway, they'll all have to make amends with the starter Pokemon they've neglected in favor of their criminal careers.
Kudos: 3





	Hexad

**Author's Note:**

> this is a fic I've wanted to write for twelve years and the Capture On! zine finally gave me the opportunity to get it out

Ice had never considered himself a bad guy. Criminal, definitely. Not nice, sure. But not a _bad_ guy.

Lavana was self-important and more than a little sadistic. Heath, reckless and shortsighted, had never matured much past adolescence. Ice himself was pragmatic more than anything else. At least, that was how Ice had always viewed the Sinis Trio.

Joining Team Dim Sun had been just another practical decision. If someone was going to dominate the world, of course he wanted to do whatever he could to not only be on their side, but be top dog in their ranks. Anybody would want the same thing, and anybody with some backbone would try it. 

How could he have foreseen _this?_

The Incredible Machine should have lived up to its name: granting them all control over the world’s Pokémon, the likes of which nobody had ever imagined. Likewise, Ice had never had a problem with Gigaremos: it just wasn’t efficient to capture, bond with, and train so many Pokémon. So he had traded his Pokéballs for laptops and...heavy little mailbox-coffeemaker-vacuum cleaner looking things. 

It was nothing personal. _Someone,_ however, clearly thought otherwise.

“Agh, come on!”

Those black eyes narrowed resentfully at him, before dissolving back into red film and retreating back into the Pokéball. 

Okay, maybe _trade_ hadn’t been quite the right word. He’d released his traditionally captured Pokémon upon joining, but of course he’d kept his starter, his _partner,_ through it all, even if he didn’t show her off to his coworkers. Her Pokéball had been tucked protectively into an inside pocket of his coat since the beginning, but that show of loyalty didn’t appear to be enough for her.

“Forget it, Ice!” yelled Lavana, ducking behind Heath as his fist connected with the jaw of a wild Machoke that was trying in a mad rage to pummel them. “We need to _go,_ if you want to hold us back we’ll leave you behind!”

Ice was sure. Fortunately, this was why he was the brains of this outfit.

“Yeah, good luck starting my boat without my keys.” Before Heath could decide that it would be easier to just tear his arms off and take the key, Ice repocketed the Pokéball and bolted through the forest after them. “The dock is this way, let’s move.”

He wondered if this was what it felt like to be a Pokémon under the thrall of a Gigaremo. There was a buzz in the air, a shakiness between his skull and his brain, that made him want to either tear his own head off or punch someone else’s in. No wonder it had made it so easy to sic Pokémon on anyone they pleased: he began to think he’d do anything, obey any command, if only it would relieve this awful feeling in his head. 

Without realizing it until it was done, he smacked aside a shrieking Joltik leaping at his face, shuddering at the electric shock it sent through his bones. It would be better once they weren’t out in the open anymore. It had to be. 

“There! Go through the bushes, the thick ones on the right! There’s a cave, and we can take the tunnels to the dock!”

Both Heath and Lavana yelled assent, and veered right...into a pile of rocks.

_“Ice!”_ Lavana shrieked, and several Pokémon in the distance shrieked along with her. “Are you screwing with us!”

Ice ground his teeth, looking up at the bellowing Bastiodon knocking rocks around on the mountain ledges. “No. But they might be.”

Heath didn’t waste time squabbling. Upon seeing the boulders blocking their way, he grounded himself in a fighting stance, pulled back one huge fist, and threw his whole body into slamming it into a load-bearing rock near the bottom of the pile. For a moment, Ice was relieved to see his strength.

And that relief evaporated when Heath’s punch only put a shallow crack in the stone, instead of breaking it. 

Both he and Lavana let out noises of frustration, but Heath only looked quizzically at his own hands. 

“Hmm...is not working. Think I will need stronger fists.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Ice and Lavana said together.

“Good, you agree.”

As his teammate had no pockets in his outfit, Ice wasn’t sure where he could possibly produce a Pokéball from, but produce one Heath did. 

“...Oh,” said Ice, intelligently. “So you kept yours too?”

“Of course! Everything I learn about strength, I learn from partner.” Heath rubbed the Pokéball like a genie’s lamp. “I just hope he forgive me for neglect, yeah? Go!”

Heath tossed the Pokéball, and from it burst the last thing Ice had expected.

Well, maybe not the _last_ thing. But an Electric-type wasn’t what he thought Heath would be keeping so close to him. 

Lavana looked supremely unimpressed. “A _Plusle? Really?”_

Heath scratched the little Pokémon between its long red ears, smiling as it squeaked affectionately. “He does not look like much, I know. But he gets _through_ much to be where he is today. He...what is play quote? ‘Though he be but little, he is fierce.’”

Ice swallowed a sigh. “All right. How about you prove it to us?”

“Of course!” Heath bellowed, striking a pose that his Plusle immediately copied. Their show was cut short when a powerful rumbling of the earth made them stumble. All four looked up to the top of the Incredible Machine, and could just make out a white-topped black figure, standing out even against the darkness. 

“...Maybe not time to show off. Plusle! Thunder!”

Plusle shrilled assent, and raised its stubby arms. _“Pluuuuuu-SLE!”_

Ice could smell the static in the air and see Lavana’s hair start to frizz, just before a wicked thunderbolt split the sky and, fortunately, the boulders, too. The stone shattered like glass, and Heath bellowed triumphantly, Plusle shrilling along with him. 

“Yes! We still got it, little buddy!”

“Plusle! Plusle!”

Lavana was already tugging on Ice’s sleeve. “Great, wonderful, we can celebrate _later,_ when—”

A blast of sound and malice shook the sky and nearly knocked all four of them off their feet. Ice thought he recognized the silhouette of the Pokémon enveloped in the roiling storm clouds, and he truly, deeply hoped that he was wrong about it. From the looks on Heath and Lavana’s faces, he got the impression that he wasn’t. 

“— _if_ we make it out of here,” Lavana amended as they ducked into the mouth of the cave. 

It was darker than dark in here, enough to give Ice the impression that if he just reached out and grabbed, he would be holding a fistful of crushed-velvet black. He knew that he knew the way, but guiding his teammates now was more difficult. Usually there was a Pikachu or an Electabuzz he could grab to light his way...

In their stead, Heath’s Plusle was on the job; it darted through their legs to take the lead, letting off Flash after Flash, and Ice immediately saw that there were pros and cons to this:

Pro: they were more than bright enough to light the way forward, and Ice knew he could take it from there.

Con: they were also bright enough to reveal all the Zubat and Sandshrew darting out of crevices and dropping off the ceiling and _gunning for them._

Sure, they were small Pokémon, not much of a problem on their own, but a whole horde of them? And Incredible Machine-crazed, to boot? Yeah, this was trouble.

Heath skidded to a stop to command Plusle, calling directions and attacks with every Flash. But while they were busy with Quick Attacks and Thunder Waves, their progression through the cave system had slowed to a crawl. Ice had a brief fantasy of the Pokéball in his coat pocket springing open and its inhabitant leaping to defend him, but it remained stubbornly shut.

Lavana, it seemed, was taking a more proactive approach. One Flash, she was fishing around at the base of her ponytail; the next, she was fixing a Pokéball in her palm with as intimidating a glare as she could.

“Listen, you might be mad at me, but this is more important, all right?”

She tossed the ball to the ground, and when it popped open, out came a sleek and shimmering Ninetales in a graceful pouring of light. Ice couldn’t get a clear look at its face, but its disdain was palpable.

“Don’t give me that. I haven’t made _you_ do anything you didn’t want to, have I? I just need you to light up a little fire so we can get out of this stupid cave, all right?”

She received a spiteful hiss and flourish of tails in her face in response.

“Oh, come on! I’m sorry that I made you stay in your Pokéball for so long, and that I didn’t listen when you tried to tell me Dim Sun was bad news, and that none of their Pokémon food was up to your standards! There, is that enough for you?”

Ninetales sat down and turned its long nose even higher up in the air, even closing its eyes to pretend its Trainer and her predicament didn’t exist. 

Lavana stomped her foot in frustration. “Ugh! You’re ridiculous! I don’t know why I even kept you around!”

Ice, finishing up spraying a shrieking Zubat in the face with Repel, took a second to give her a flat look. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any more cooperative Pokémon?”

“Like you and your giant kiddie float can talk! Listen, Ninetales, I...” Lavana huffed and rapidly tapped her foot in a way that most would call irritable, but that Ice recognized as nervous. “If you don’t want to help me, fine, but...would you do it for my teammate’s Plusle over there?”

Ninetales opened its eyes, casting a supercilious glance over its shoulder. 

“Yeah, look at it, all tiny and pathetic over there. How long is it supposed to keep this up? Are you really just going to sit there and let it do this all by itself?”

A thoughtful hint of a growl bubbled up from Ninetales’ throat. It considered Lavana’s plea, considered the way Plusle was starting to pant, considered Ice, who was now trying half-blindly to kick an attacking Sandshrew in the face. Fortunately for all of them, it didn’t take very long for it to come to a decision. 

A fierce howl reverberated around the cave, and in the blink of an eye it was all awash in pinwheels of fire. Ninetales made short work of the smaller Pokémon nearby, and then lit a smaller, brighter flame, suspending it in the air above its snout like a lantern. 

“Attagirl!" crowed Lavana, as they all surged forward again. “Just keep running, we know exactly where we’re going! Ice, tell her where we’re going!”

Ice rolled his eyes, but shared the lead with the Pokémon lighting their way, calling out the directions he had memorized as if he were driving a sled. Down, down, right, left, left, right, _hard_ right, all the way down, and a slight left...

All the while the fire at Ninetales’ paws and Plusle’s electrified little body viciously smacking anything that moved kept their attackers at bay. When they finally burst out of the caves and onto the little crescent of wet sand that Ice had kept prepared for just such an occasion, the freezing night air lashing their skins and the scent of saltwater rushing up their noses. Both Pokémon’s tails flashed burning white, and they shot up in the air to knock the rocks above the opening down, filling up the exit so no human or Pokémon could follow them.

A bit preemptive, but Ice didn’t care: their ride out of Almia was right here. A modest white motorboat, more than big enough for three, tied at the end of a short and creaky dock. He liked it well enough, though his teammates seemed to have misgivings.

“Is...so little,” Heath observed, rubbing his chin. 

Lavana quirked an eyebrow, and it seemed to Ice that her Ninetales was somehow doing the same. “Are you _sure_ it can get us all the way to the next region?” 

“If you’d prefer to swim, be my guest,” said Ice, loping across the beach and down the dock. The boat swayed back and forth when he jumped into it, but it still held strong. “But as soon as I get it running, it’s going, so you better be on it if you want out the easy way.”

He didn’t look behind him as he made for the driver’s seat, but he was pleased to hear both of them and their Pokémon scrambling onboard. He fished the key out of his pants pocket, rammed it into the ignition, and turned it, eagerly awaiting the deep roar of the engine.

_Krrrr-errr-err-ru-rur._

Ice’s mouth twisted, and he turned the key again with more vehemence than was really necessary. More puttering and clanking, and the boat still wouldn’t come to life. 

His teammates, surprisingly, had the grace to keep quiet as he leapt from the boat. He didn’t miss their judgmental looks, though, as he sloshed through knee-deep water. 

It didn’t make sense. No damage to the sides or bottom of the boat that he could see, the motor seemed to be all right, and in any case he had double checked the whole thing just a few days ago, preparing for the Incredible Machine’s activation and all the ways it could (and did) backfire. And yet the boat was inexplicably dead, their hopes of escape dashed just when they had come within reach. Just their luck — just their rotten, awful luck!

Ice swore louder and longer than he ever had in his life, his fist slamming against the side of the boat hard enough to dent it. And what did it matter, anyway? They were screwed, so much more than he had ever intended. He could barely hear the distant blasts in the sky over the scarlet roar of rage in his head.

Heath blinked in surprise, and Lavana just _stared:_ neither of them had seen their leader lose his composure like this before. Even after his faltering on Altru Tower, after that stupid Ranger kid had blundered his way into another victory, he hadn’t betrayed anywhere near so much real emotion.

Ice breathed hard and slow through his nose, scraped knuckles still pressed against the side of the boat: the useless hunk of junk, he figured he ought to call it now.

“...Sorry, guys,” he growled through clenched teeth. “I don’t know what I overlooked, but...I don’t think we’re getting out of Almia tonight.”

The two glanced at each other — Heath’s Plusle chittering in distress on his shoulder — before Lavana spoke, hesitant for maybe the first time in her life.

“That’s, uh...that’s okay, Ice. But if it’s all the same to you, then...maybe it’s time to try the kiddie float?”

Ice snorted. “Even if that wasn’t the dumbest way possible to bring that up, she wouldn’t listen to me, anyway. Didn’t you see her, back in the forest? She hates me, just like your Ninetales can’t stand you.”

Lavana bit her lip and glanced at the floor of the boat, Ninetales looking almost surprised. Heath put a hand on her shoulder, his fingers thick enough to cover half her upper arm too. 

“Ice, might be worth a try. Your starter, correct? Such a special bond, not easily broken.”

Ice couldn’t outright deny it. In the world of Pokémon Trainers, that was as basic a fact as the color of the sky.

“...Fine. But don’t get your hopes up.”

Reluctantly, he took the Pokéball from his coat and threw it into the water.

People sang praises of Lapras’ mild temperament and human-level intelligence, thinking that the former meant that it was universally friendly and forgetting that the latter rendered it capable of anger and grudges beyond that of the average Pokémon. Ice, certainly, was more intimidated by his partner’s glare than he would be by any human.

“...Hey. I...guess you heard about our problem?”

Lapras, floating on the shallow waves, looked back at him cold and unperturbed. He was going to need to do better than that.

“Ah...yeah. I know I screwed up, I know I shouldn’t have left you out. We’re partners: we always have been, and...we always should be. So I promise that I won’t let things get so out of hand again, and that I’ll include you in everything from now on like I should.”

Ice waded the distance between them. Lapras’ glare didn’t soften, but she allowed him to lay his hand on her nose just like always. The thick hide was cold and clammy, but familiar enough to be comforting instead of unsettling. 

Always, it brought back the blurry hours of his childhood, splashing through the gray shallows of the lake, trying to catch up with her enough to grab a flipper. Back before he had realized how small and powerless he really was. Before he had hardened and became Ice.

_“You’ve_ got to know I’m not so bad a guy that I’d forget you, right?”

Lapras eyed him harshly for another painfully long moment. The next moment, though, water was splashing up his stomach and there was a hard, damp head nuzzling his chest and face. Ice couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled, but he sure was smiling now. 

“...I missed you, too.”

~0~

_Much_ faster than the motorboat, Ice thought, even if it was a bit of a tight squeeze. 

Shooting off across the open ocean, they watched the dark mass that was Almia grow smaller and smaller. Through the smoky clouds, Ice thought he could see flashing lights, but didn’t give much thought to what they could be. His only priority was whatever waited for them on the far shore. 

He felt quite sure that they would be sticking together, at least for now. His teammates were tucked between the knobs of Lapras’ shell: Heath was stroking Plusle’s ears to soothe them both, and Lavana sat with her knees tucked up to her chest. Ninetales laid with its rear to its Trainer, but allowed Lavana to tentatively pet a tail. 

As for Ice, he laid back against the back of Lapras’ long neck, stroking its side with the backs of his fingers. Soon, Team Dim Sun would be nothing more than a misstep in their past. Whatever they did next in their team of six, he was sure it would be worlds better.


End file.
